


The One Who Got Away

by skepticallysighing



Series: 30 Días de Recuperación [1]
Category: I See You (2019), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Closure, Fix-It of Sorts, Freeform, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, SPOILERS FOR I SEE YOU, Trauma Recovery, Vent Piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28496430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skepticallysighing/pseuds/skepticallysighing
Summary: The man was tall with messy hair cut off just above the shoulders. There was something so angular and so soft about his face that, when Victor spotted him, he immediately thought 'Patrick Hockstetter finally came for me! He’s found me! I’m caught!'And then he thought, 'who the fuck is Patrick Hockstetter? I don’t know anyone named Patrick Hockstetter.'orVic and Alec mistake each other for their past-tormentor and trauma-bonded friend respectively, and only afterwards does Vic connect a few extra dots.
Relationships: Alec (I See You) & Victor Criss
Series: 30 Días de Recuperación [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090907
Kudos: 1





	The One Who Got Away

**Author's Note:**

> \- Highly recommend watching "I See You". Big spoilers in this fic. Alec is truly just fanon Patrick.  
> \- Kind of a vent piece :(

Victor hadn’t thought about Derry in years on the day he looked up and saw Patrick Hockstetter entering the coffee shop.

He got a job no problem. Nevermind coming from some dirt-poor town no one could remember the name of in Maine, because Victor knew how to tell people what they wanted to hear. He had a knack for valuing the people society threw away, and through some fantastic program where working paid off his college tuition, he made his way through community college no problem. By the time he was through, he had made enough connections to get a stable job as a corrections officer at a local prison. It wasn’t glamorous work, but glamour had never been a goal, had it?

And here he was, in some coffee shop organizing his notes on a laptop computer. He had heard the little ring of the door, looking up purely out of habit and spotting someone he recognized and didn’t.

The man was tall with messy hair cut off just above the shoulders. There was something so angular and so soft about his face that, when Victor spotted him, he immediately thought  _ Patrick Hockstetter finally came for me! He’s found me! I’m caught! _

And then he thought,  _ who the fuck is Patrick Hockstetter? I don’t know anyone named Patrick Hockstetter. _

Even if Victor didn’t recognize the man, the man seemed to recognize him. Those pale eyes fell on him and absolutely shook him to the core.

_ He’s gonna kill me _ -

But the man looked away and went to get his drink. Victor tried to steady his trembling hands by wrapping fingers around his cup, to refocus on his work, but he couldn’t help looking at the half-stranger.

The man did look so much like a faint memory. The face refused to come back into his consciousness, but other things did -- like, how tall and cervine Patrick had been, like a skinwalker deer-like creature that ate small, lost deer. Like Victor had been.

_ Look at you, Iccy Viccy. _

He felt his eyes well up as memories threatened to come back, as Patrick Hockstetter was suddenly real and back, and he was just Vic again. Just some small, scared boy with bleach-blonde hair and the tiniest wrists in the world.

The man got his drink and walked towards his table, and Victor sat straight up, ready to run. Or to fold in on himself, cover his face, to crumble.

“May I?” the man asked, and it really did catch Victor by surprise because that voice wasn’t Patrick’s at all. It was too even, too gentle. Patrick’s voice had been nasally, dripping with cruelty. In fact, his movements were too clean too. The man was tall, but he’d hunch in on himself as if trying to seem less tall. Perhaps he was taller than Patrick had even been. 

And the way he walked too. He walked like a person. Patrick had walked with swinging arms and legs, like his limbs were too long and he was still adjusting to them. Never like a person, never like the man who was before him.

So, if this wasn’t Patrick, why did this stranger stare at him with blank, empty eyes?

“Please,” Victor croaked, pulling his drink back into himself so that the man could set down his drink. And the man did, setting down a cup of what appeared to just be black coffee.

Taking him in now, there were more aesthetic differences. This man was blonde, probably naturally. Not like Victor, who’s fake blonde was abandoned in the past and replaced by his own natural, brown hair.

“How’d you get that?” the man asked, using his thumb to gesture to Victor’s neck.

Victor immediately flinched into himself, pulling his scarf higher up to cover the deep and plain scar across his throat.

“Sorry,” he said quietly, voice rough from lack of use. “Didn’t realize it was showing.”

“Barely at all,” the man shrugged, smirking a little. Smirking, yeah, but smiling like a regular person. The eyes stayed blank. “I just got an eye for it.”

_ What the hell did that mean? _

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Victor glanced down into his half-empty cup, unable to stand the intense, empty gaze.

“Is there- is there some reason you came over here?”

“I did, but it’s-” the man bit his bottom lip, considering. “It’s  _ silly _ . You look a lot like someone I used to know.”

“Could say the same to you,” Victor told him, unable to look up.

It made the man chuckle quietly and take a sip of his drink.

“Anyone ever told you that you look like Tommy Braun?”

It took him off guard a second time.

“What? No, I-...I’ve never heard that name before.”

“Oh,” the man said, a little resigned and a little embarrassed.

“You’re,” Victor hesitated. “You’ve never been told you look like Patrick Hockstetter, then?”

The man laughed, and Victor couldn’t help a small smile. His laugh was  _ infectious _ .

“Man, that’s weird! What’re the chances of something like th- small world,” the man said, eyes crinkled up just a bit. When his eyes crinkled like  _ that _ , he didn’t look like Patrick at all. “Sorry for all this. I’m Alec,” he said, not offering his hand. It was fine, because Victor never offered hands either.

“Alec. I’m Victor,” he said so softly, feeling a little at peace with this strange replica of his former tormentor.

“Victor. Nice name,” Alec praised, eyes flicking back to Victor’s scarf-covered neck. Normally, Victor would push it away, but for some reason, he didn’t.

“It’s- it’s from when I was younger.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm,” Victor nodded, unsure what to do. He hadn’t spoken of how he had been maimed permanently often, and it was fuzzy around the edges. 

Then, as clear as could be, he could picture it.

_ Picture Henry lashing out out of  _ nowhere _. Twisting to the side and jabbing Belch apart, ripping him to pieces. Vic had screamed out, hands going for his seat belt, but Henry had already turned on him with that goddamn hell knife and red eyes. _

_ When the police came following Mr. Bowers’ murder, Victor had been in the car with the stench of rot. It had soaked into every pore of his body and kept him to rot too. _

_ It was Patrick’s fault, because Patrick pushed Henry too far. He had wrung Henry’s mind like a towel and then made Vic feel so small he could hardly breathe. Because Patrick thrived on Henry and Vic’s suffering and agony. _

_ Vic had been left in that car, eyes and throat streaming. He had died, hadn’t he? He had died. _

_ Well, Vic had died that day in that car. Every moment from then on was Victor’s. Vic was dead. Henry had died before he killed Vic. _

And he told all that to Alec.

Alec listened, eyes slowly filling with something Vic had never seen before. Vic wouldn’t be able to place it for a long time. 

Weeks later, while drinking wine alone in his apartment, he’d see on the news something shocking about Alec. Something about a police officer murdered, a sick serial killer caught, and Alec being the only victim who got away, and he’d be able to place the look.

He would recognize the solidarity of those who had been forced to die too young, who lived on to be adults, and who never were given justice for the cruel brutality someone else had tortured them with. And he’d realize that Alec had died just like Vic and Henry.

He’d feel a little rush in his stomach, because he’d realize that there were people out there who were watching out for people like him. People who were making things just. 

When he saw in the news what Alec had done, Victor smiled. Alec really wasn’t like Patrick at all.

He’d tip his glass of wine to the screen.

_ To those of us who got away. _


End file.
